Add Texting to the List of Things That Are Killing Us Faster

Today, in news that will make you feel bad about your existence: Texting and tinkering with mobile devices for extended periods of time could make you die sooner, the doctors of the world say.

As The Telegraph reports, the hunchback pose that people adopt while staring down at their devices is known to increase the risk of an early death in the elderly. Chiropractors are concerned that younger people—who spend between one and two hours on their phones a day—could be shaving years off their lives.

The United Chiropractic Association (and probably your mom) say that Gollum-like posture can be just as threatening a health risk as obesity, citing studies that bad posture in older people is linked with a disease called hyperkyphosis. Colloquially known as “dowager’s hump,” this condition is often associated with heart problems. Apparently older folk with even the slightest hump are 1.4 times more likely to die than those without.

In other words, we’ve all been killing ourselves slowly while we sit, smoke, and apply sunscreen. Now texting is helping speed up the process.

“This isn’t alarmist or scaremongering; it’s what more and more research is telling us,” UCA chiropractor Edwina Waddell told The Telegraph. “And the good news is that it doesn’t have to happen because it’s something we all have a degree of control over.”